Book Reviews

We have three reviews in this issue, all concerned with the process of getting high-technology products to market quickly. This is a hot topic today for product design and manufacturing professionals, and the emphasis in all three books is on multifunctional teamwork. Integrated product development involving the simultaneous design of products and their related production processes is emphasized in all three books. The last two books focus more narrowly on the aspect of concurrent engineering.     

Book Reviews

The first review is of a book that probably should be required reading for most personnel who participate in new product development—both academics and practitioners. It focuses on product innovation, primarily from an engineering perspective. Special emphasis is given to product design and development issues ranging from attribute specification and design for manufacturing to the economics and management of product development projects. Although the book has limitations, it provides highly relevant insights, especially for those involved with engineered products. The second review covers a book devoted to software development, which is becoming a ubiquitous ingredient in many products. Our reviewer reports that the book offers much practical wisdom. The third and fourth reviews discuss books for practitioners that are focused on specialized areas: biomedical and clinical instrumentation and food products. Although specialized, the first of these books offers some broader, more general lessons. The other will be of greatest value to those developing food products who have statistical training. The next three reviews cover other books of greatest interest to practitioners. The first is also most useful for those developing engineered products. The second will be of most use to less experienced personnel. The third book is about teamwork—now regarded by most practitioners as essential—but with only a few examples pertinent to product development. The last two reviews report on books that will be primarily of interest to academics and of limited interest to practitioners. The first of these two reviews describes a conference proceedings book, which is a compendium of unusually thoughtful presentations on the impact of changes in information technology on the design and execution of marketing actions. The articles in this collection are at once balanced in terms of level and style and comprehensive in terms of their overall coverage. The second covers a product management textbook with special emphasis on opportunity identification and the alignment of effort and resources with such opportunities.     

Book Reviews

The first review discusses a book on major innovative breakthroughs. The book educationally summarizes fourteen histories of important new products and services, draws general conclusions from these cases, but seems to lack predictive lessons that can assure future dramatic new products. The second and third reviews cover books devoted to cross-functional teams and teamwork. Both books provide helpful guidance in dealing with the practical aspects of making such teams function well in new product development projects. The fourth book describes a rather mechanical lock-step approach to concurrent engineering or total quality development, which is considered its synonym. Specific components are discussed in detail. These include technological development, concept phase, design phase, and production preparation. Although the book ignores the role of marketing, it should prove useful to those interested in the detailed reviews of mechanical engineering procedures such as "The House of Q uality," engineering concept selection, and Taguchi methods of process design analysis. The reviews conclude with brief notes about three other books.     

Experts,Information, Reviews,and Coordination: Evidence on How Prizes Affect Sales*

Exploiting the award process, we implement a regression discontinuity design to estimate the effect of winning France's main literary prize, the Goncourt. It increases sales, especially for books that sold fewer copies before the announcement, the number of reviews on Amazon, and the probability of them being negative. The effect is partly driven by an increase in word of mouth. Those findings are consistent with a model where the prize provides information on the existence of a book and acts as a quality signal and a coordination device but prompts consumers to read books that are far from their tastes.     

Engineering attitudes: an investigation of the effect of literature on student attitudes toward engineering

The growth of STEM career occupations is outpacing the college enrollment of STEM students in the United States. There have been many research projects investigating this issue. There has not however been a study which investigated the impact non-fiction literature has on student interest in studying STEM (specifically engineering) content. The purpose of this study was to investigate the change of student attitudes toward engineering after reading literature involving non-fiction engineering centric narratives. The study used a modified version of the PATT (Pupils Attitudes Towards Technology) called the TEAS (Technology and Engineering Attitudes Scale) to measure student attitude change. The students were high-school aged students in the United States (ages: 15–17) who were enrolled in an English Literature course. The students completed the TEAS before and after reading and studying two engineering and technology centric non-fiction books (The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind and October Sky). The data revealed that student attitude after reading and studying the two books did not statistically change.     

Technical Note: Constructing Tornado Diagrams with Spreadsheets

Tornado diagrams are a classic tool of sensitivity analysis for decision analysis, yet engineering economy texts and TEE articles rarely include them. It is suggested that this is due to apparent barriers in constructing them—particularly for problems with positive and negative values. While the texts and articles may not represent typical engineering economy practice, they certainly lay the foundation for it. This note summarizes how to construct tornado diagrams in Excel. A template for constructing these diagrams is available from the author at aftge@uaa.alaska.edu.     

Secondary level engineering professional development: content, pedagogy, and challenges

The design of this study was a multiple case study conducted to examine the knowledge, pedagogical principles, and challenges involved in providing engineering-oriented professional development for teachers at the secondary school level. A set of criteria was used to identify five representative projects for analysis in the US. A variety of tools and processes were used to gather data including on-site observations, interviews, focus groups and document reviews. Results of the study indicate that engineering professional development tends to be based on work focused on curriculum development and implementation. Given the distinct design orientation of engineering, it is not surprising that the focus of engineering-oriented professional development tends to concentrate on engaging activities, with a primary focus on process rather than content. A key outcome of this study was an observed lack of a clearly formulated and articulated conceptual foundation for secondary level engineering. Regarding pedagogy, the researchers identified a heavy emphasis on modeling and applied learning. At the same time, the researchers observed a lack of emphasis on reflection and analysis of the pedagogical processes and techniques used to shape teachers’ ability to teach engineering to their students. The findings of the study also include concerns raised by teachers as they engage in engineering professional development. These include concerns about technical knowledge, particularly with the use of specialized software applications and other tools, as well as with practical issues such as time, resources, and availability of appropriate curriculum.     

Modularity, component outsourcing, and inter-firm learning

Modularization of product architectures is a strategy for managing complex design activities and production systems, and associated supply chain issues. It has wide-reaching implications, from design engineering to business strategy. With standardized interface specifications, component outsourcing is possible, both with respect to the division of tasks in functional specification and detailed engineering of a product architecture. However, failure at the system level could still take place if interface compatibility issues of the outsourced component with the rest of the system are not understood. Outsourcing creates a certain degree of supplier-buyer interdependence and possibilities for inter-firm learning. A study of Chrysler Jeeps WIPERs suggested that learning-by-failure from one product architecture cultivated closer cooperation between the supplier and Chrysler to solve technical problems as well as to be innovative in searching for the best technological solutions for future product architecture designs.     

基于模糊排架的图书分类排架查询系统设计

介绍了基于模糊排架的图书分类排架查询系统的设计背景和具体设计步骤,阐述了图书排架分类号和架位号确定的具体方法,逐一介绍了系统各功能模块的设计思路和相应的源代码,提出了进一步完善该系统的建议。通过实际应用,取得了较为满意的效果。     

Doing Design Thinking: Conceptual Review,Synthesis, and Research Agenda

Design thinking has attracted considerable interest from practitioners and academics alike, as it offers a novel approach to innovation and problem‐solving. However, there appear to be substantial differences between promoters and critics about its essential attributes, applicability, and outcomes. To shed light on current knowledge and conceptualizations of design thinking we undertook a multiphase study. First, a systematic review of the design thinking literature enabled us to identify 10 principal attributes and 8 tools and methods. To validate and refine our findings, we then employed a card sorting exercise with professional designers. Finally, we undertook a cluster analysis to reveal structural patterns within the design thinking literature. Our research makes three principal contributions to design and innovation management theory and practice. First, in rigorously deriving 10 attributes and 8 essential tools and methods that support them from a broad and multidisciplinary assortment of articles, we bring much needed clarity and validity to a construct plagued by polysemy and thus threatened by “construct collapse.” Second, aided by the identification of perspectives of scholars writing about design thinking, we provide detailed recommendations for relevant topics warranting further study in order to advance theoretical understanding of design thinking and test its applications. Third, we identify the enduring, yet essential, questions that remain unresolved across the extant design thinking literature and that may impede its practical implementation. We also provide suggestions for the theoretic frames, which may help address them, and thus advance the ability of scholars and managers alike to benefit from design thinking’s apparent advantages.     

发挥设计主导优势 降低工程项目建设投资

７０ｋｔ／ａ聚丙烯国产化流程是中国石化集团公司化工工程公司十几年来在聚丙烯工程设计上实践经验的结晶。通过消化吸收国外技术,提高设计国产化水平,设备国产化国产化力度,使实际发生的工程建设费用大幅度降低。不断改进工艺技术,实现国冰化,形成先进的工艺技术,不断优化工程设计方案,推行多版次设计,设计、采购、施工合理交叉,缩短建设周期。设计向采购、施工管理延伸,在提高工程建设过程中的技术含量,降低投资,保证     

Knowing what engineering and technology teachers need to know: an analysis of pre-service teachers engineering design problems

With the rapid advances in civilization, technological breakthroughs, and a globally growing workforce, there is a strong need for engineers capable of working in the 21st century environment (Galloway, The 21st century engineer: A proposal for engineering education reform. ASCE, Washington DC 2008). To help increase the quality and quantity of students choosing to pursue engineering, leaders have called on K-12 education to look for methods of inserting pre-engineering into the K-12 curriculum. Leaders in technology education have responded to the call to develop top quality candidates for engineers by infusing engineering into the technology education curriculum. Teacher preparation programs have used various methods to provide future technology teachers with the required content knowledge in order to effectively teach engineering design within the technology curriculum. One such program uses an ABET accredited engineering curriculum for the content and additional training to strengthen engineering education pedagogy for technology teachers. Students who graduate from this program possess both an engineering degree and technology teaching license. The purpose of this investigation was to ascertain the differences between technology teachers from this program and traditionally trained technology teachers. In particular, how each group incorporates the engineering design process in classroom assignments. Design briefs were gathered from pre-service teachers who graduated from the aforementioned program and compared to design briefs of practicing technology teachers around the United States. The engineering design process was used to develop a rubric to compare the usage of engineering content between the two groups. It was found that students with 4 years of engineering training were more likely to use all steps of the engineering design process. Further examination illustrates that engineering trained technology teachers were significantly more likely to use mathematical and analytical methods to determine optimum solutions. In order for technology education teachers to effectively infuse engineering design into coursework, they need to be familiar and comfortable with the engineering sciences and the design process. With limited engineering design experience, technology teachers are not as likely to use optimization techniques involving mathematical and analytical reasoning. These concepts are critical for engineering students to be successful in college engineering programs and beyond.     

浅谈大型建设工程施工总平面设计

简单介绍了关于大型建设工程施工总平面设计的国内外研究现状。根据大型建设工程施工总平面的概念及特点,将其看作一个系统,采用系统工程学理论和价值工程学原理,结合专家评分法,对大型建设工程施工总平面设计方法进行了分析。以安徽凤台电厂一期工程为例,并进行了实例分析,证明了所提出的大型建设工程施工总平面设计方法是比较系统而合理的,具有一定的可操作性,可以应用于大型建设工程施工。     

Middle-school teachers’ understanding and teaching of the engineering design process: a look at subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge

This paper reports on research investigating six middle school teachers without engineering degrees as they taught an engineering unit on the engineering design process. Videotaped classroom sessions and teacher interviews were analyzed to understand the subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge the teachers used and developed as they introduced the eight steps of the engineering design process (from content standards for the state of Massachusetts, USA). The teachers demonstrated wide-ranging knowledge of the engineering design process, and this paper describes two of the steps the teachers showed a more sophisticated understanding—constructing a prototype and redesigning. Examples from the teachers illustrate strengths that can be built upon as well as some areas for further development.     

Linking Marketing and Engineering Product Design Decisions via Analytical Target Cascading*

Firms design products that appeal to consumers and are feasible to produce. The resulting marketing and engineering design goals are driven by consumer preferences and engineering capabilities, two issues that conveniently are addressed in isolation from one another. This convenient isolation, however, typically will not result in optimal product decisions when the two problems are interrelated. A method new to the marketing community, analytical target cascading (ATC), is adopted here to explore such interrelationships and to formalize the process of coordinating marketing and engineering design problems in a way that is proven to yield the joint optimal solution. The ATC model is built atop well‐established marketing methodologies, such as conjoint, discrete choice modeling and demand forecasting. The method is demonstrated in the design of dial‐readout household scales, using real conjoint choice data and a parametric engineering product design model. Results indicate that the most profitable achievable product can fall short of predictions based on marketing alone but well ahead of what engineering may produce based on original marketing target specifications. A number of extensions can be accomplished readily using techniques from the extant marketing and design optimization literature.     

建设工程项目设计管理创新研究

论述了项目管理国际化背景下跨文化管理以及各参与方积极合作的重要性,通过对建设工程项目设计管理面临的挑战和设计决策过程的分析,提出通过确保项目设计的每个阶段及每一步的安全来保证整个项目的工艺安全。通过案例分析提出了设计管理创新的路径选择,一要突出科学的设计控制计划编制;二要通过设计质量保证体系保证设计质量;三是要突出设计和采购、施工及试车的协调管理。这些方法和途径有利于保证质量控制目标的全面实现。     

Computational thinking embedded in engineering design: capturing computational thinking of children in an informal engineering design activity

Just as engineering and computational thinking have recently gained increased attention in pre-college school-based education, many museums and science centers have also designed exhibits and experiences to promote computational thinking and engineering learning. Recent reports suggest that computational and engineering thinking can empower each other, and engineering design can be an appropriate context for children’s engagement in computational thinking. Previous studies have documented young children’s abilities to engage in engineering thinking and other studies have collected evidence of young children’s abilities to engage in computational thinking. However, there is little research that explores how children’s engagement in both engineering and computational thinking can support each other. Hence, in this qualitative case study, we aimed to examine how 5 to 7-year-old children engage in computational thinking competencies in the context of a family based engineering design activity. This activity was conducted at a small science center exhibit. In our presented findings we map children’s enactment of at least one CT competency to children’s engagement in engineering design actions.

     

How an integrative STEM curriculum can benefit students in engineering design practices

STEM-oriented engineering design practice has become recognized increasingly by technology education professionals in Taiwan. This study sought to examine the effectiveness of the application of an integrative STEM approach within engineering design practices in high school technology education in Taiwan. A quasi-experimental study was conducted to investigate the respective learning performance of students studying a STEM engineering module compared to students studying the technology education module. The student performances for conceptual knowledge, higher-order thinking skills and engineering design project were assessed. The data were analyzed using quantitative (t test, ANOVA, ANCOVA, correlation analysis) approaches. The findings showed that the participants in the STEM engineering module outperformed significantly the participants studying the technology education module in the areas of conceptual knowledge, higher-order thinking skills, and the design project activity. A further analysis showed that the key differences in the application of design practice between the two groups were (a) their respective problem prediction and (b) their analysis capabilities. The results supported the positive effect of the use of an integrative STEM approach in high school technology education in Taiwan.     

Why do students present different design objectives in engineering design projects?

Engineering design practice has been recognized as an effective approach to engage students in STEM learning. However, we noticed that students who possessed strong STEM knowledge did not necessarily perform well on their design projects. Thus, this study sought to explore factors that shaped students’ design objectives and means. A design-based research was adopted using a single group teaching experiment, in which students’ performance in relation to conceptual knowledge, engineering design practice, and their STEM attitudes were assessed in different design complexity groups. Based on the findings of this study, we concluded that students’ interest and metacognitive skills might be the key factors affecting their motivation during the engineering design process. Their abilities in predictive analysis and testing/revising were core elements affecting their design thinking. Our work provides preliminary evidence on how students form and present different design purposes and objectives in an engineering design project.